Graffiti Bridge
by gillan
Summary: AU. in essence: "Cam Fisher, limply crouching over a pool of pastel upchuck that splattered my welcome mat." happy belated birthdays, ren and livvy! threeshot. rated t for coarse language.
1. part one

**Graffiti Bridge**

part one

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><p><em>note<em> _(please read)_: soooo. i started this fic 3 years ago and i never finished it for reasons unknown to all of mankind (including myself)! a couple weeks ago i finally opened this word doc (aptly named 'for ren and livvy,' both of whom have probably long forgotten about this) and got incredibly nostalgic. so here is the rewritten version of part one. i hope you enjoy! -han

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><p>At half-past eleven, I heard heaving kittens.<p>

I babysat a kitten once, but something was wrong with his digestive tract so he churned out hairballs like his life depended on it. Fortunately, after we switched to wet foods with higher meat content and slicked his paws with Vaseline, he was just fine.

This noise was similar—abrasive breathing and croaking peals. It was unrelenting, buzzing vociferously from behind the front door, too grating to ignore. From somewhere within the kitchen, Mom jolted awake, and I craned my neck with a tight frown.

_Gigi_ was already in the DVD player and I was moon-eyed for Gaston, but that didn't stop Mom from nagging me to _open the door, for Christ's sake, Alicia_. I shot her the most incensed evil-eye within the realms of possibility; I was reasonably at ease in my flannel sleep pants and Christmas sweater, but I drew myself off the couch anyway with a weighty sigh. I placed the bowl of sweet cereal on the coffee table and pulled the tarnished spoon out from between my lips.

As I inched towards the front door, I found myself hoping that maybe—_just maybe_—Dad had finally decided to return from his business trip (otherwise known as sexcapades with the golden-brown, hourglass-shaped women he always seemed to 'fortuitously encounter' in _La Costa de Sol_). Maybe he bought a kitten.

Even the notion of any kind of gesture from Dad pinched my heart and lodged it in my throat. I brushed my fingers through my hair, winded with anticipation, wide-eyed with pulsing veins. I took a delicate breath and wrenched open the door.

It wasn't my father. It wasn't even a heaving kitten.

**.**

Most girls would have bottled and corked Cam Fisher's vomit on the spot, thanked him for praying to the porcelain god, and then rushed home to sleep with it underneath her pillow.

I might have even done the same had every muscle, every joint in my body not gone slack.

Because there he was in all of his broad-shouldered, protruding collarbon_ed_, heterochromic glory: Cam Fisher, limply crouching over a pool of pastel upchuck that splattered my welcome mat.

**.**

"_Cam_?"

We probably weren't on first-name basis yet, but I was too staggered and too bewildered to care. He inclined his head meekly, a radiant, fractured smile splitting his face as he lifted his eyes to mine.

_What the fuck?_

He balled his fingers into the welcome mat for support, clinging to it, hunched over and flushed pink. His skin was slick with a strong echo of too much cheap vodka. I could smell it on his sweat, unpleasant and sour.

Cam jabbed a sloppy finger into the air. "I like your sweater," he slurred in a blend of indistinguishable syllables. "Th'reindeer." My thoughts were still stringently limited to _'what the fuck,'_ but I tried to smile.

The first and only time Cam and I ever spoke came to pass two years ago, when we dissected an eyeball in Biology together. He'd scowled and refused to be the one to cut through the sclera—that was unerringly the extent of our history.

"What…what _exactly_ are you doing here?" I squawked. White wisps slipped past my shaky lips and unfurled into the inky sky; Cam watched, apparently entranced. After a buttery silence, I abandoned all hopes of an intelligible answer and crossed my arms. "Do you—do you want to come in?"

He hummed, thrusting out his hands—his pale dinner-plate hands, with thick fingers, warm and coarse. My pulse raced when he slotted our fingers together with a loose indifference. I drew him off from the welcome mat and he cast his eyes down at me, giggling. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I looked away.

We were halfway through the front hall with a foot on the first step when Mom bellowed, "_Who is it_?" My heart pummeled my ribs as I jumped, sweat beading along my hairline. She had zero tolerance for strange boys reeking of high school parties, and I was the same. _Sometimes_.

Cameron Fisher was…painfully charismatic. He had cranky tendencies, a superiority complex, and a scowl that felt like a punch to the face, but you didn't turn away a drunk and vulnerable Cam Fisher—you just _didn't_; I was pretty sure that was written somewhere in the Constitution.

"Alicia!" Mother snapped intolerantly from the kitchen. Any second now and she would march into the front hall; I might as well start digging my own grave.

But, being gifted with stellar ingenuity, I cried, "It was just a prank!" The hairs on my arms stood straight, taut like dry grass, until—

"Oh."

I waited for her to stride in, or for Cam to blow our cover, but finally I exhaled in relief.

Cam pressed himself against my shoulder, struggling to remain erect. His breath was heavy and bitter and it targeted my cheek, but he was grinning, his lips too right over both tiers of bone-white teeth. "M'thanks."

He smeared the words but I heard him loud and clear.

.

Sneaking Cam past Mom was easier than I expected.

She was blaring one of her Pink Floyd albums through a connection cable that attached the radio to her iPhone. She skirted her hands along the island in the kitchen with her eyes closed, humming gently.

Dad introduced her to their _Animals_ album years ago, and I think it consoled her when she felt frazzled. I thought it was awful stuff, though; all pessimistic and unfeeling, with mind-numbing synthesizers and generic rock voices.

"Have a good drown," Mom crooned into her wooden spoon as Cam and I inched towards the staircase. "Have a good drown as you go down all alone."

On any other occasion, I would have been mortified—_yes, Cameron Fisher, this is how my mother occupies herself on Friday nights_—but Cam was dipping into unconsciousness, too focused on placing one foot in front of the other to do much of anything else.

I held my breath behind fiercely pursed lips, towing him up the stairs. Like a sack of rice, he weighed me down. Sweat slipped down the slope of my nose, and for a fleeting second, I considered throwing up my hands in defeat and dumping him outside to sleep with the malevolent night-squirrels. But I cleared my head with a firm shake and pushed ahead.

When we finally hit the top step, I sagged against the wall, out of breath. Cam was quiet, his head lolling and his parted lips wavering with every supple exhale.

I was sure he was asleep until I heard him mumble, "_Hey_," his voice thin and reedy like pebbles dropping through a gutter. My breath caught in my throat and I waited with voracious anticipation. "Hey, I—"

But nothing. No "thank you." No drunken confessions. No kitten sounds.

He was asleep. I looked down at Cam's long face, his eyelids tinted snowflake-blue and drawn shut. His lips were parted, dry and white from flaking lesions. A silvery sheen of sweat clung to his bold jaw.

I shook any improbably thoughts from my head. _Calm the hell down_. Having this gorgeous male sampling passed-out in my arms was hardly anything to get worked up over. I drew his arm over my shoulder, and together we shuffled down the hall. Asleep, Cam was flaccid and limp like a noodle. When I managed to kick open the door to my room, I was so worn out that I let him fall to the floor.

I felt a bit reckless. It wasn't like me to sneak cataleptic boys into my house. The last time I did anything even remotely irresponsible, I was sixteen, and I avoided the shower for five straight days during final exams. Mom nearly had an aneurysm when she found out.

_Mom. _Shit_. _If she walked in and saw Cam, hypovolemic shock was entirely possible. Likely, even.

I was weighing the pros and cons of sneaking some Estazolam into her water glass when Cam's eyelids snapped open. In a flash, he was curled into the fetal position, one hand bowed and cupping his face. With a final sweeping shudder, he puked on my carpet.

For a moment, I saw a colossal amount of red. Then the stench hit me like an elephant on rollerblades.

Maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all.

.

The final arrangement was Cam on the bed and me on the floor—now puke-free.

I snuck into my mother's room after she fell asleep and took off with the first can of air freshener I could get my shaking hands on. Now, the whole room smelled like _Hawaiian Breeze_ instead of his putridly sour vomit.

Haphazardly, I piled two blankets on the carpet and slotted myself inside its warm aperture. Folding my arms, I strained to keep my eyes open. I could only imagine what would happen if I fell asleep.

_Scenario One_ involved Cam waking up alone with a blistering hangover. He would groan brashly or slump downstairs—regardless, Mom would find him, lose her mind, and ground me for life.

_Scenario Two_ went along the lines of Cam coming to his senses, glancing down at me (did I mention I drool in my sleep?) and then fleeing through the window.

He couldn't just _leave_. As inane and embarrassing as it was to admit, I wanted a thank you. I wanted appreciation and his unadulterated gratefulness. I wanted him to _like me_. I dug the heels of my hands into my brow, flushed and aggravated. He was Cameron Fisher—_crème de la crème_ in our school, our town, and possibly the entirety of the state of New York. Had it been any other boy puking on my welcome mat, I would have slammed the door in his face. I hated admitting it.

_You're an idiot_, I thought to myself with a pinched frown.

I reached for my postage stamp of a phone, an unsettling ball of nerves undulating in the pit of my stomach. She picked up after two rings like I knew she would.

"It's fucking past midnight, Leesh," Massie snapped.

"As your best friend, I didn't realize my calling hours were limited to the PM," I mumbled faintly, glancing briefly up at the bed. Cam twisted in the sheets and then went still. "Guess what?"

"Was that a rhetorical question?"

I ignored her. "Cam Fisher is in my sleeping in my bed." I tried to sound nonchalant, as if the notion of having most attractive boy in school balled up on my mattress was as a tedious as Honors Latin I.

"Alicia Rivera, you _minx_!" She screeched with a manic laugh. I could practically see her varnished claws tightening mid-stroke around a fold of Bean's skin. "_Get it!_"

"It's not—I didn't mean like that," I admitted, picking halfheartedly at my cuticles.

"Then explain!"

"He was drunk. He vomited on my welcome mat, so I took him in out of…sheer kindheartedness."

I heard her snort. "Sheer kindheartedness, my ass," she scoffed. "Haven't you had a crush on him since, like, the eighth grade? You and I both know you only did it—"

I hung up. I could admit it to myself—albeit silently—but I wouldn't listen to her say it.

.

Eventually, I fell asleep.

I tried not to, I really did. For hours I avoided thinking about my enticing goose-feather pillow, occupying myself instead with virtual twenty-questions and braiding my hair. My efforts were fruitless. At some point I drifted off, only to encounter a magnified Cam Fisher raging about my uncomfortable mattress in a jarringly bizarre dream.

I woke up to light pouring through the window, the glare curling off the glass pane, beaming at me. Mumbling inarticulately, I squinted around the room to assimilate my surroundings.

As usual, the _My Little Ponies_ puffed out their chests in one particularly dusty corner, rainbows and fruit on their identical flanks. Inside the closet, the contents of a board game were littered beyond the refuge of the box— thoroughly normal.

But when I stole a glance at the bed and found the disheveled sheets empty, my heart sank and I scrambled to my feet. He was gone. On impulse I began to panic, looking around riotously. The only indication that he had ever been in this room was the tousled blanket on the bed.

I flung myself around the corner, tripped down the stairs, and slid into the kitchen. I combed through each projection, each nook in the house, frustrated and unwilling to believe he had left.

"Cam?" My voice was wound tight and high, a shrill sound that only Mom acknowledged from her bedroom.

"Alicia? Was that you?" She barked assertively. I didn't reply.

Following another brief once-over in each room, the anticipation rapidly dimmed. _He left without even a thank you_. I felt stung, personally affronted. What an _asshole_.

I pursed my lips, casting a chaste glance at the front door. Maybe he was outside. It was warm indoors, I reasoned, and he might have wanted to get some fresh air. I knew I was just grasping at straws now, but I needed to be sure.

I shuffled outside, my toes curling into the unyielding soil and nubs of grass, slick from winter flurries. I jerked my head right and left, seeing nothing. My head sagged to my chest. Disappointment streamed through every vein, and I felt my face flush. "Fucking Cameron Fisher," I complained under my breath.

Frosty air nipped my skin. Teeth chattering, I balled the ends of my nightshirt in my fists and discharged a raggedy sigh. I was just about to turn and walk back inside when I heard someone call my name, the voice funneled through a sluggish bass intonation.

I stopped in my tracks.

It wasn't Mom, obviously; she was neither sluggish nor male.

I froze, hands numb, and looked over my shoulder. It was Saturday morning. None of my neighbors could even bring themselves to stir on Saturday morning.

"_Alicia!_" There it was again—rich, low tones distended like elastic candy into a sleepy drawl. It was then that I began to suspect Cam Fisher; not simply because it would be wholly ideal if it turned out he'd never left, but also because of the voice—the voice that more or less shrieked, _'I am a sex god, have babies with me.'_

I didn't dare breathe his name aloud out of painstaking trepidation, afraid that I might be terribly, terribly wrong.

"_Shit_, Alicia, I'm up here."

My neck snapped up, and it wasn't until I piped _"Cam" _that I realized I'd been holding my breath. He sprawled with an addicting air of effortless nonchalance, a twisted, scornful expression on his face— his face, that should have been _but wasn't _insipid from a dreadful hangover.

And then I become conscious of the fact that—_oh hell_—he was on the roof.

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><p><em>note<em>: it's a pretty silly and ridiculous concept, but i hope you enjoyed anyway. thanks for reading!


	2. part two

part two

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><p><em>note:<em> hi again. this fic now has three parts. part three is about 1/2 done, but for me it could take anywhere from 2 days to 3 years to finish, so we'll see! i'm hoping to have it up before june ends but who knows lol. enjoy.

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><p>Thirty-seven in one hundred thousand people die from falling off rooftops each year.<p>

I read it in a _National Geographic_ when I was thirteen; I'd scoffed at the odds then, but I could imagine it now—losing my footing ninety feet in the air and then falling to my deplorable demise, dropping onto a garden gnome and giving up the ghost.

Cam Fisher, however, seemed utterly unperturbed in spite of the ominous fraction that made me contemplate shitting my pants.

"Get up here," Cam snapped, jolting me out of my reverie. "I need to talk to you." Even disgruntled, he was out-of-this-world attractive. In mere moments I found myself scaling the ladder in my Burberry Check Chemise.

_Jesus, what next?_ Devouring Slim Jims by the pack? Attending public school?

Once I was close enough to curl my dank fingers around the overhanging eaves, I pulled myself up with an offhand grunt. As I tried to avoid thinking about detonating garden gnomes, I struggled to appear both pleasing to the eye and composed in my flaccid squat. Still, he ogled me like I'd tattooed _I'm a Fuck-Up _across my forehead.

"_So_," I began, pretending like I was thoroughly engrossed in the enthrallments that were my expiring nail beds. "You don't look hung-over." I cursed myself and bit the inside of my cheek when he crumpled his nose disdainfully.

"Are you kidding? I feel like shit," Cam scoffed. He rubbed his eyes jadedly, frowning. "Your room was too bright; it was hell." He snorted unceremoniously. "Hell with a sun."

"And the _roof_ was your brilliant idea of pain alleviation?"

Cam's sneer stung like an abrasive splinter, but it didn't prepare me for what he was about to say. "Don't be such a _bitch_."

It was a slap in the face and a few knocks to the shins in patent flats. I felt the blood rush to my cheeks, hot and thoroughly unpleasant. Standing indignantly with a bitter scowl, I muttered, "Bye," a wet snivel filling my throat.

_A bitch?_ Taking him in last night was a mistake, but I wish I'd known that before. I didn't care that was crabby and hung-over—I wouldn't tolerate it. My teeth caught on corner of my lower lip. Five minutes ago, I would have killed for a _thank you_. Now I only wished he would leave.

"_Christ_, Alicia! It came out wrong," Cam sighed. "Hold on." I heard him trying to scramble to his feet, working against the slight stratum of sleet— graceful of him.

"Leave me the fuck alone."

"'_The fuck alone'_ sounds pretty hopeless," he hissed through clenched teeth. "Seriously Alicia, I need to talk to you."

He said the last bit in a voice like honey, tender and sweet, imploring with his wide round eyes as his fingers unfolded to press against my elbow.

"…Leesh," I said finally, stiffening. "It's Leesh." Flurries coasted through the wind and melted on my eyelashes. Disconcerted, I smeared the droplets against my cheeks and didn't turn around.

"Leesh?" Cam mocked, aloof and remote as he played the name on his tongue.

My heart leapt when he said my name. It shouldn't have.

Sighing, I dropped to the brick and wrap my arms around my knees, pulling them to my chest. "How did you even get up here?"

"Your window."

_Jesus_. "What do you want?"

Finally I spared a glance in his direction. I saw twisted lips, whorling curls, and angry eyes— the green narrowed and the blue exaggerated by a supercilious eyebrow —and felt a twinge in my chest.

Cam hunkered down beside me. He was close enough that I could inhale the remnants of his cologne that hadn't yet been adulterated by alcoholic fermentations. He kind of smelled like the stuff that oozes from your body after it's become septic from an intestinal surgery gone wrong.

"I just wanted to say…" He rubbed his face with his pan-sized hands and glared at me like he'd just caught me clubbing baby seals. "Thank you."

My throat constricted; despite his disgruntled expression, I found it hard not to smile—not to _like_ him. He exhaled vociferously and wrung his hands when I didn't respond. I wished I didn't find it cute.

"I really appreciate what you did for me," he continued in a monotone, looking fiercely ahead. "Like, uh, not calling the cops."

My stomach twisted at his words. "Okay," I said at last, looking away so as to keep the lust-induced marriage proposal at bay. "You're welcome."

"Yeah." He frowned and pushed himself to his feet. "I'm just going to…go." Hesitating briefly, Cam met my gaze. "Nice seeing you."

"Bye," I whispered as he hobbled down the rutted brick layers.

He was halfway down the ladder when it began to pour.

.

The heavy shower fell as one sheet, dropping harshly, swiftly and all at once. I heard Cam curse from his perch on the ladder and I very nearly laughed. Slicking my plastered hair to one side, I peered over the ledge.

"You've got to be fucking kidding," Cam seethed. "Fucking _hell_." I watched as he balled a portion of his T-shirt in his palm, wringing water from the fabric. Irritably, he pushed his eyebrows together and carefully inched to the ground.

I grinned indolently and screened my face with both arms. "Do you need a ride?" _There, I said it._ My pulse pumped in my ears as I waited for his answer.

He sneered like even the notion was derisory, and my heart sank. "No, I don't need a ride," he snarled over the spray of rain. "I can walk."

With a name like Cameron Fisher, you would have thought that the guy might have had some brains. Or at least a jacket. "If you get hypothermia and die, I'm not coming to your funeral," I replied, cautiously descending the ladder myself.

"You're not invited," Cam retorted, stuffing his hands into his flooded back pockets.

Ouch. My hands clenched. Soaked to the bone and quivering, I watched solemnly as he dripped down the driveway. The rain darkened his disheveled hair and teased his clothes. With leaden eyes and fumbling fingers, I pressed my face into my hands and turned around.

I had one hand on the doorknob, embarrassed and disillusioned, when I heard a thunderous splashing noise and an equally blaring _"Shit!_"

Whipping around, I had the decency to at least gasp. He was level with the ground, depressed into a silvery puddle, sputtering and waterlogged.

I rearranged my face into what I hoped was a look of blank apathy and picked at my fingernails.

"Do you want a ride now?" I asked lightly after a moment. Cam spat streams out of his mouth in dismay. He observed me vigilantly but said nothing. I added, "It's raining _so hard_, and unless you want to slip again…" I trailed off and waited for his response.

"Where's your damn car?" He spluttered at last.

.

On a good day, my '95 Corolla could hit forty miles an hour before dry-heaving. I realized, after the engine snarled when I tried to turn the key, that today was not one of those days.

"It—it's not working," I hissed through gritted teeth. "It won't even move past the first notch!"

Cam sighed, lifting his hand to screen an embellished yawn. "Can you move the wheel?"

"No!"

"Try jiggling it."

"Why don't _you_ try jiggling it?" I spat, fed up with his blatant lethargy. He yawned again, leaning over and knocking my hand away. With one firm jerk, the engine revved eagerly and the wheel slipped loose. His arm slunk away, distinguishable muscle definition underneath a network of soft blue veins.

"Freak," I muttered, though my breath hitched at his proximity.

"I'm the freak? You're the one with cheetah print seat covers—I've never felt more emasculated!"

"God, don't be a _bitch_," I hissed, spitting out his words from earlier with just as much malicious spleen. He shrugged it off in a second.

Aggravated, I slammed my foot against the pedal and pulled out of the driveway.

"Take a left," he said after several extensive, silent minutes. It was our first exchange since we'd left my house. I did as he said, gripping the wheel tighter when I rolled into his neighborhood. Each cookie-cutter house was gated and rose 4 floors above indistinguishable manicured lawns, pickled green.

"This is me." Cam pointed to a house on the left. It stood stiff like an arrow, with long lurking windows. A red bike leaned idly against the wall.

I pulled into his driveway and put the car in park. "Uh, we're here," I muttered unnecessarily, picking at a loose thread on my sleeve. I turned my head just in time to watch his Adam's apple bob. My own throat seized up and I dropped my eyes to the carpet.

"Thanks for…" Cam rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "You know."

"Right."

"Yeah."

We exchanged tight, thin smiles. Then, with a soft exhale, he detached his seatbelt and loped easily up his driveway.

.

His house was locked.

He wiggled the knob a few times, struck the door until his hand ballooned, and gave the brick wall an unmerited beating—all before turning around with pinched lips and streaks like cables impressed into his crumpled nose. His eyes were wide even from where I sat in my car; hope churned in the blue and fisted the green.

Reluctantly, I shifted gears and pulled up alongside his curb. It wasn't that I didn't want to spend time with him—_I did_, immensely—but it was analogous to torturing myself.

I slid the window down anyway and thrust my head out. "What's happening?"

"Listen," he began slowly, guardedly. "My parents are out and Harris took the spare key, but I swear he'll be home soon, so maybe we could just—"

I cut him off with a tense laugh. "Isn't there a roof you can sit on somewhere?" I was only half-joking. His sagging posture, his long upturned nose and pointed chin, the soft freckles on his pink skin, the way his pockets engulfed his pan hands—looking at Cam Fisher was like feeding an ache.

"Rude," he snorted.

"_I'm_ rude? _You_ threw up on my welcome mat."

"Yeah, one time!"

"You slept in my bed."

"You let me!"

I nearly grinned. "You bullied my car."

"How could I not? Those seat covers are a joke." He threw up his hands dramatically, and a soft, warm laugh filled my throat.

"Cam, you really aren't doing yourself any favors," I replied lightly, finally unlocking the doors.

He dropped down beside me and drew a hand through his hair. "Just drive," he complained. Cam knocked my shoulder good-naturedly with his, and I nearly ruptured the gas pedal in surprise.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and boldly lifted my gaze to meet his. "What—what do you want to do?"

"Do you have food? We can go to your place."

I groaned inwardly, resisting the intense urge to bash my head against the steering wheel. Mom was going to kill me.

"Sure," I mumbled after a steady silence. My voice was level but my thoughts whirred. "We can watch _My Little Pony: The Runaway Rainbow_."

Cam's eyebrows shot up his forehead like twin bullets. "As exhilarating as that sounds, I prefer SNL."

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><p><em>note:<em> thanks for reading!


	3. part three

part three

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><p><em>note<em>: hi! so this thing is finally done after over 3 years (which is insane because did i really need to take 3 years to write this ridiculous 3-part fic? no! but i digress). to anyone who's reading this: thanks. enjoy this not-so-realistic, not-so-comprehensible chapter. i love you.

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><p>Mom stood pigeon-toed in the kitchen with her back to us, but turned when we stepped into the front hall. Her eyes were wide, flashing, and incontestably horrified.<p>

"What's this?" She shot daggers with her dark eyes, fixing a fierce stare on Cam. He smiled meekly, and I had to remind myself to breath.

"Cam, this is my Mom. Mom, this is my—this is Cam." _Dammit._

"Cam," she echoed apathetically, setting both hands on her hips and thrusting her sides into view. She wore sheep nighties, paper-thin and pink. Utterly embarrassed, I stared at my shoes. Couldn't she have changed into her one lone work outfit—the white blouse folded into her pretty blue skirt?

"His house is locked, his family isn't home, he has no friends—" Cam snorted, "—so I invited him here for the afternoon."

Mom considered me for a moment, beady-eyed, before wrapping her fingers around my arm. In her vice-like, artificial-nailed grip, she towed me into the corner.

"What are you doing?" She hissed once we were out of earshot.

"Relax, Mom, I'm not going to get pregnant," I deadpanned with a frown. "He's just…a friend." We were friends, right? I mean, I cleaned up his puke. If that didn't warrant friendship, what did?

Mom glanced in his direction cagily, saying nothing. I watched her eyes flicker over his tatty shirt, his rugged sneakers, and the dark jeans that plunged past his waist and tousled his briefs—I watched, and my heart sank.

"Mom, I will grovel," I whispered anxiously. "Do you want me to grovel? Because I'll do it."

She didn't speak for what felt like forever. Finally, she muttered, "Groveling is debasing, Alicia," before stringing out a long, unsettling pause. "Do you…like him?"

"No, of course not," I blurted in record time, clasping my clammy hands together behind my back.

Her face tightened until she looked fragile, with her cracked grimace and a dimple of uncertainty crimping the spot beside her lip. "He leaves at four," she snapped, before stalking into the kitchen.

In just seconds, her _Animals _record was spinning.

.

The next couple of hours were a blur of television and SpongeBob mac and cheese.

Cam took the liberty of streaming a few SNL episodes from my desktop—fuzzy old ones, with obscure musical guests he was fanatical about. "Just listen!" he exclaimed for the fifth time, as the Foo Fighters executed a mediocre performance of _Rope_.

I turned my attention to my fork with an idle eye-roll. "You're an idiot."

"An idiot with incredible taste."

I let it rest and lifted my eyes to the screen again (or rather, to his profile, but that was beside the point). Cam let the rest of song play out before mumbling something about being "too fucking hungry for words, Leesh."

"You _devoured_ the mac and cheese twenty minutes ago. God, you're a glorified ape." Lazily, I tilted my head to expose my sardonic grin. In return, I caught his self-satisfied expression and wink. Or at least it looked like a wink; maybe he had eye spasms.

I flushed anyway, casting my gaze down. "Let's go," I mumbled, pushing the slack sleeves of my sweater past my elbows. I led him downstairs to the kitchen, where Mom had her back pressed against the counter as she flicked through a magazine. She glanced up with poorly concealed scowl when we drifted into her line of sight, before leaving the room stiffly. Thick residual tension hung in the air.

"…She hates me."

"What?"

"Your mom, she hates me."

I chewed on the inside of my cheek and turned to the refrigerator. "She…" There wasn't exactly a way to put it delicately. "She hates most guys."

"Guys you take home, you mean? Like, boyfriends?"

My laugh was hard and short, like an aggressive bark. "_No_, I mean most guys." I rummaged through the freezer, pushing aside an old frozen yogurt and sliding my fingers over the top shelf. "What do you like? I think we have frozen tacos somewhere."

He hummed in response, his voice deep and gravelly, sloshing in the pit of my stomach.

"I swear it's in here somewhere," I insisted under my breath. "I saw it yesterday…"

I should have grown suspicious when Cam fell unusually quiet, but it wasn't until he spoke that I whipped around. "Who's this?" He asked curiously, his unwavering gaze fixed on a frame cupped in his hands.

My breath caught in my throat. The framework was polished but old, just like the photo inside. Dad smiled up good-naturedly from Cam's hands, a toothpick projecting from his lips. I resisted my initial reaction, which was to tear it from Cam's grip and maybe punch him in the face. Instead, I took a deep breath and turned my back to him. I wasn't really searching for the tacos anymore, but it beat the alternative of surveying what was sure to cultivate a pitying expression.

"That's my dad," I told him, halfheartedly penetrating the freezer for the elusive and possibly non-existent tacos. "He's the reason Mom hates guys—because he left." Cam said nothing, and in return I exhaled roughly. I tucked away my hair, knocked my shoulders back, and loped towards the kitchen sink with an artificial smile. I had no reason to wash my hands, but I desperately needed something to do with them.

"I couldn't find the tacos," I practically sang, slipping soap between my fingers.

"Alicia…"

"But there's ice cream. I mean, it's frozen yogurt, and it's low-fat, because it's the only kind Mom will actually buy—"

"Alicia, can I please—?"

"_Leesh_," I snapped, rounding on him with the glare I'd been trying to suppress. "My name is Leesh."

Cam seemed taken aback. _Good_, I thought with a scowl. I shut the freezer door and felt my joints lock, tight and tense. I kept my hands on the door handle and didn't turn around. If Massie was here, she'd yell at me for overreacting and probably call me a "piece of shit asshole casserole." _Whatever_.

Suddenly, I felt him pull up behind me, the front of his shirt pressed into the back of mine, and I almost broke out in a violent sweat. "He's an idiot for leaving you," he said softly, drawing my eyes to his.

An unrecognizable sweetness dripped from his smile as he placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. My stomach lurched. I met his gaze one last time—and now I was close enough to count his freckles, or pick apart the blue of his right eye—before I did what I'd wanted to do since ninth grade Biology.

I pressed my mouth to his, negligently, casually, like a habit I couldn't shake. He had SpongeBob mac and cheese breath, but otherwise it was everything I'd hoped it would be. When I pulled away, he looked a little dazed. "You…_like_ me." It wasn't a question. He smiled, though, and I took it as a good sign.

"Uhhh," I mumbled, my heart pounding, drawing the word apart until it cracked on my lips. "I wouldn't serenade the underbelly of your sneakers, or anything, but…"

"You think you're funny." He kissed me briefly, pressing his hand into the small of my back.

"And you—like me?" I panted hesitantly, recoiling against his palm.

"Was me kissing you not a blatant indication of my feelings?"

I drew our lips together in response, my mind reeling and dizzy with the feeling of my own breath pounding in my ears. "But—but how? You never talked to me," I told him when he angled his head and dropped his mouth to my cheek, my chin, the underside of my jaw.

"Neither did you," he pointed out, returning his lips to mine, our teeth clanking when he spoke. When I finally stepped back, my back pressed against the refrigerator, Cam tightened his grip on my sweater.

"Why did you come to my house?" I panted, my breath hitching as his thumb roamed the expanse of my back.

"Huh?"

"You puked on my doormat…is this ringing any bells?"

Cam rolled his eyes. "Party in your neighborhood." He took a step forward and kissed me again. "I was a _little_ drunk. It was coincidental." He hovered an inch from my mouth thoughtfully, before tracing our lips together. "Or maybe it was fate," he snorted, his breath entwined with mine.

"Shut up."

We kissed and we kissed and we kissed until every nerve ending in my body ignited. My brain spun with uncertainty—this couldn't _actually_ be happening—but, as his palm skated up my side to cup my cheek, I found it hard to care. My heart pounded violently and my eyelids wavered every time his fingers stirred against my face, and it wasn't until the floorboards upstairs creaked that we finally sprang apart. _Mom._

Cam sank into a chair, all tousled hair and labored breathing. "Where, uh—" he began after catching his breath, squinting up at me. "Where can we continue without facing her wrath?"

My ensuing laugh was strangled but relieved. I thought for a minute, giving the erratic beating in my chest time to settle.

"The roof?"

* * *

><p><em>note<em>: so...I DON'T KNOW I REALLY DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT WAS. but thank you for reading. please leave a review if you feel so inclined. also, have a happy happy new year! make good choices.

-han


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